Governing Coalition in Romania Drops at 35% Voting Intention, Social Democrats Grow to 34%

A rather strange situation is happening at the moment in Romania, presented by Politico. The governing coalition, which consists of three main parties, is shrinking on a monthly basis when it comes to the intention of the people to vote for them.

The coalition members, PNL – National Liberal Party, USR-PLUS and UDMR – the Hungarian minority party, only have 35% of the voting intention. We say `only` because they were supposed to represent the will of the majority. It didn’t happen at the beginning of this coalition when all these parties gathered 46% of the votes, it doesn’t happen now, but now the situation is more visible than ever.

Namely, PNL has 18% of the voting intention, from 25% at the elections, while USR-PLUS has 12%, from 15% at the elections, and the Hungarian party has 5%, which is the minimum required percentage to enter the Parliament during elections.

Meanwhile, the main Opposition party, PSD – Social Democratic Party, gathers 34% of the voting intention. The party met a solid growth, as it has got only 28% during the last elections in 2020. The paradox is PSD barely did anything to deserve this growth. Its leader prefers to post on social media from time to time, criticizing the Government, but no other actions taken.

When asked about this style, the leader of the social-democrats asked the journalists: “What do you want us to do? To set ourselves on fire in front of the Parliament building?“. He was definitely right. With so many mistakes committed by the current Government since the right-wing coalition took power in Romania, it would’ve been impossible for the Opposition parties to fail.

One political formation, in particular, draws attention through the unprecedented growth: AUR – Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, the nationalist party. This party came out of almost nowhere at the last elections, where they got a little more than 9% of the votes. Now they stand at 14% and they are on a growing trend. Their messages against the government’s measures attracted a good percentage of the population and, if the pandemic lasts longer, their percentages will definitely increase.

At the moment, a possible coalition between PSD and AUR gathers 48% of the voting intention, 13% more than the current governing coalition has.